CS Lewis's Fiction and its allusive character.

dms1972 · Jun 7, 2020

For the best part of my life I have found it near impossible to believe in the miraculous in the Bible - things like the miracle at Cana, ie. Jesus turning of water into wine, and such. I think I believe it sometimes, but when I am in the presence of a scoffer I am no longer sure I do, that has always bothered me. Then there are folks like William Barclay who I think in most respects was Bible believing, but who tends to undercut any super-natural element in them, perhaps thats deliberate to highlight what message the miracle was meant to convey other than that Jesus can do supernatural stuff! I assume though that Barclay believed in Jesus Resurrection from the dead, maybe someone can inform me?

Tone · Jun 7, 2020

dms1972 said:
Well he didn't seem to have it in view from the outset to write a series of seven stories, so maybe for that reason they don't hang together perfectly. He wrote one then wrote another - thought that would be the end, then wrote another, then wrote four more!!

This solidifies the point, in my opinion...the unconscious mind is very powerful and found a way to express itself with little help from mere intellectuality (if that's a word).

dms1972 · Jun 7, 2020

Tone said:
This solidifies the point, in my opinion...the unconscious mind is very powerful and found a way to express itself with little help from mere intellectuality (if that's a word).

He said something about having a dreams (sometimes he said nightmares) about lions around the time of writing. I would think that Lewis as a person of deep christian faith, he could hardly write a story in which his beliefs or worldview wasn't in some way present.

Tone · Jun 7, 2020

dms1972 said:
He said something about having a dreams (sometimes he said nightmares) about lions around the time of writing. I would think that Lewis as a person of deep christian faith, he could hardly write a story in which his beliefs wasn't in some way present, but what I am unsure of is whether he set out to deliberately "smuggle theology" into his stories, he seems to have realised that afterwards because adults didn't recognise that Maleldil, and the bent Oyarsa of Thulcandra were figures of God and the devil.

I thought Prelandra was pretty explicit in its theological content.

dms1972 · Jun 7, 2020

Tone said:
I thought Prelandra was pretty explicit in its theological content.

I think it was Out of the Silent Planet that he said most reviewers thought 'the Bent One' was an invention of his own.

GreekOrthodox · Jun 10, 2020

Lewis also threw in classical education in the Last Battle as the characters enter Aslan's Country, which is the REAL version of Narnia and Earth.

"It's all in Plato, all in Plato: Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools?" - Digory Kirke

dms1972 · Jun 10, 2020

Bob Crowley · Jun 12, 2020

I haven't read the Narnia series other than "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", so I can't offer a comment as to whether they're a "hodge podge". I have read the SF Trilogy, and as a new Christian at the time, I was impressed and almost enthralled by the way Lewis managed to incorporate Christian theology in such an imaginative way.

The trilogy hangs together very well indeed.

I also remember Lewis commenting somewhere in his apologetic writings that as a writer, he was often subject to the fantasies of critics, who thought he was trying to do this or do that, whereas most of time he had no such motive.

I wonder if we're doing the same thing here?

GreekOrthodox · Jun 16, 2020

Bob Crowley said:
I also remember Lewis commenting somewhere in his apologetic writings that as a writer, he was often subject to the fantasies of critics, who thought he was trying to do this or do that, whereas most of time he had no such motive.

I wonder if we're doing the same thing here?

Reminds me of the Annie Hall scene in the queue line
Man in Theatre Line: Oh really, really? I happen to teach a class at Columbia called "TV, Media, and Culture." So I think that my insights into Mr. McLuhan, well, have a great deal of validity!
Alvy: Oh, do ya? Well, that's funny, because I happen to have Mr. McLuhan right here, so, so, yeah, just lemme lemme lemme — [pulls McLuhan from behind a nearby poster stand] — Come over here for a second. Tell him!
Marshall McLuhan: I heard what you were saying. You know nothing of my work. You mean my whole fallacy is wrong. How you ever got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing.
Alvy: [To the camera] Boy, if life were only like this!

dms1972 · Jun 16, 2020

I am not trying to read something into Lewis's fiction here. I was for a while quite interested in what he had said to Charles Wrong about something he wanted to try involving writing three, seven, or nine books. I thought for a while this was something to do with the planets. However interesting that is for people, is it not the stories themselves that are the most important thing.

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CS Lewis's Fiction and its allusive character.

dms1972

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